It's exactly month now. It has been one month after Yolanda brought destruction to the country to earn her retirement from PAG-ASA's list of typhoon names. It has been a month and I'm still alive. That's what matters, isn't it?

November 8, 2013. I woke up after a good night's sleep and was thinking that PAG-ASA made another mistake. Little did I know that I was going to experience literally the 'calm before the storm'. It was the longest 2-4 hours of my life. I never thought a day would come that I would come to hate the wind and the rain so much. I've never been more scared in my life than at that moment. All I could do was curse at the wind and rain to stop as I felt completely helpless while Yolanda went  around knocking trees down, ruining houses, taking lives. This is by far the worst and most memorable typhoon I have ever encountered and I never want something like that to happen again, never again.

After Yolanda left, this is how our place looked like. All of a sudden, the place felt foreign, unfamiliar to me.